Now that I've got your attention, I'd like to talk about St. George Absinthe Verte.

So there's all these people who are going on about thujone. Get over it. Check out The Wormwood Society's Thujone page. Early theories of high thujone content in period haven't been borne out by the more recent and more precise analysis of samples.

Now that that's out of the way...

I've had absinthe before.

I've had Czech oil-mix absinthe that friends smuggled back from Europe. It wasn't particularly good. It was very bitter, and not in a good way.

I've had Spanish macerated absinthes in unnatural colors. They weren't particularly good, but they weren't as bad as the Czech stuff.

I've also had the St. George Absinthe Verte. I got a sample of a distiller's proof a few months ago, and found it to be rich and interesting, with an odd marzipan character to it not found in other absinthes. More importantly, the anise flavor didn't overpower everything else. It had a pretty good balance.

On Friday, kproche, britgeekgrrl, iamradar and lisa_marli went to the Alameda Zoo St. George Spirits for release day, and it was a good thing. The distillery sold out the half of the production they reserved for on-site sales before the end of the day. There are currently scavenger hunts around the bay area to find retailers who still have bottles in stock. If you wanted to try this first release, you're probably going to have to find a bar that has a few bottles and pay something like $18 a dose for it.

It's worth it.

We took a bottle to karisu_sama and didjiman's. It's not quite the same as the pre-release sample; the almond flavor is pretty much knocked out and there's a lot more complexity. The anise is still pretty strong, but not overpowering.

People quite enjoyed it in the traditional icewater-mix. On Saturday we brought a bottle of champagne and made "Death in the Afternoon," Hemmingway's absinthe/champagne cocktail. It's absolutely divine. The surprise hit of the evening was a tiny bit (like say a teaspoon) of absinthe in a small glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade.

We will definitely be trying this in a Sazerac. Probably make it with Old Potrero Rye, though, for a real SanFrazerac.

Word has it they're planning a 7,200 bottle run for January, with an early February release. That release shouldn't be as crazy. You never know, though.